By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
As a couple of hundred people gathered in downtown Hays on Thursday, either to protest or attend "Understanding the Threat: Strategic and Operational Training and Consulting on the Threat of the Global Islamic Movement," presented by conservative leader and former state Rep. Peggy Mast, it was unlikely anyone’s’ mind was going to be changed.
Across from the venue, a young, diverse crowd standing up to what they perceived as intolerance crowded across the sidewalk as a mostly senior white crowd arrived to attend the event.
The protestors outnumbered attendees at least 2-to-1, displaying a variety of signs and loudly chanting “Love not Hate” as supporters drove by honking and cheering in recognition of the efforts.
Anniston Weber helped notify people about the event via social media, helping create the protest turnout.
“A group of us noticed that there was an event going on at the Fox, primarily targeting Islam and Muslims,” Weber said. “And we have Muslim students here, we have a Muslim community here, and they deserve to feel just as welcome as everybody else here.”
She said Mast's notoriety also drew attention to the event.
“The speaker has been known to make homophobic, racist, even sexist remarks and you know, we don’t need that. … We don’t need bigotry, we don’t need hate, and Hays is better than that,” Weber said.
Despite the billing, during the event attendees heard Mast share a list of perceived threats to the country from groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, communists and socialists.
During the over two-hour presentation, Mast also spoke about a variety of conservative conspiracy theories about COVID-19, global warming and the federal government moving to control more than they should.
Following her presentation, Mast took audience questions. With the divisiveness in the room evident from the outset as a young woma, became frustrated when Mast failed to answer in a way she felt was appropriate.
“She knew she wasn’t going to get an answer,” said a born-and-raised Hays citizen who asked to be identified as Doug Jones, who asked the next question. “I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer. The point is to ask the question.”
He asked Mast if it responsible to spread fear with conjecture.
“Through the whole thing, she responded as if there was only one piece of conjecture, but throughout the whole thing she was making claims that were unsubstantiated and making generalizations about cultures, making generalizations about countries and peoples, blaming for this, that and the other thing,” Jones said.
“And she didn’t answer my question.”
But he didn’t really expect her to, he said.
After Mast avoided the question, audience members started yelling toward each other, until Jones asked the crowd to move on and listen to the presenter.
Afterward, he said he felt Mast had presented disjointed ideas, pushed into a vague idea of an enemy.
“I think people are really scared and I think everybody wants somebody to blame,” Jones said. “And this whole talk was sort of an expression of that.
“It was a very chaotic jumble of ‘this person is to blame’ and ‘these people and this person are working together to dismantle the American ideal.’ ”
That ideal is based on the existing power structure that is being perceived as threatened, he said.
“That power structure is white male-dominated that is being threatened by people from other countries, people from other cultures and stuff,” he said. “Their ideas are new, foreign and scary.”
But with more access than ever to information and different ideas, he said he believes it’s a natural response to the growing complexity of the world.
“It makes sense that more people are going to have more dots to connect," he said.
But while he felt the presentation was problematic, Mast had the potential to share relevant information.
He spoke with Mast after the event ended and asked about her concerns about Islam, noting the event was billed as a discussion on that topic, but it was not discussed.
“And she preceded to tell me her views about Sharia law and nothing that I disagree with,” he said.
“She was talking about how it was a very suppressive set of views and that she doesn’t support it. Very fair. I think if her talk was about Sharia law there would be a lot less problematic things on in it, but she was all over the place.”
But his critique of the lack of an organized message extended to both sides.
“The same thing could be said for this protest,” he said, pointing to the diverse subjects displayed on the protestors’ signs. “It’s scattered, disorganized.
“On both sides, the protest and the event, no one knows what they are really standing for I think. I think it is just people want to be riled up.”
A lack of understanding — and more, a lack of the desire to understand — underpins the messaging of both groups, he said.
“The people out here probably dislike the people in there a lot more than the people that went in,” he said, noting only a few of the group of protestors came into the venue. “We were right face to face with them, sitting in the same room and nobody was super disrespectful to each other.”
Weber said only “one or two” of the protestors she knew of were planning on going inside.
She would not be one of them.
“Personally, I don’t think I could stomach it,” Weber said. “After reading articles and watching interviews with her in the past, I don’t think I could excuse or condone somebody that quotes Hitler unironically.”
“I think when people are separated from their enemy, they’re more likely to get upset at them,” Jones said. “I think that if you have a conversation with your enemy, you are probably going to see that they are a human being and they deserve respect and they probably have some good points.”
He wished more people had conversations with those that share different opinions and world views.
“Both sides — they don’t know what the person believes, because they fear somewhere inside themselves, that if they really gave it a shot — if they really gave the other person a chance — they might be brainwashed.”
But he said his beliefs did not change, just from hearing another point of view.
“I feel like I understand the other side better,” he said.
Editor's note: Hays Post was requested to take no photos of Mast's presentation.